1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to engineering and management systems for the design of communications networks (both wireless and wired) and, more particularly, to a system and method for managing a real time bill of materials when designing, evaluating or optimizing the performance and/or costs of a communication system using a three-dimensional (3-D) representation of the environment. The present invention provides the design engineer with the ability to (1) group components together as a single connected or unconnected unit or “component kit” to simplify selection and assembly of hardware components, (2) have at his or her disposal in the Parts List Library performance parameters for selected components which are associated with the signal or “frequency” which will pass through the component such that electromechanical properties of the components can be considered on a frequency dependent basis automatically by the system, and (3) have at his or her disposal attributes which are associated with specific components in the Parts List Library which, acting in concert with real-time smart processing, provide the design engineer with notifications or warnings when he or she has proposed connections, components, or other arrangements which will not operate correctly in the communications network.
2. Background Description
As wireless communications use increases, radio frequency (RF) coverage within buildings and signal penetration into buildings from outside transmitting sources has quickly become an important design issue for wireless engineers who must design and deploy cellular telephone systems, paging systems, or new wireless systems and technologies such as personal communication networks or wireless local area networks. Designers are frequently requested to determine if a radio transceiver location, or base station cell site can provide reliable service throughout an entire city, an office, building, arena or campus. A common problem for wireless systems is inadequate coverage, or a “dead zone,” in a specific location, such as a conference room. It is now understood that an indoor wireless PBX (private branch exchange) system or wireless local area network (WLAN) can be rendered useless by interference from nearby, similar systems. The costs of in-building and microcell devices which provide wireless coverage within a 2 kilometer radius are diminishing, and the workload for RF engineers and technicians to install these on-premises systems is increasing sharply. Rapid engineering design and deployment methods for microcell and in-building wireless systems are vital for cost-efficient build-out.
Analyzing radio signal coverage penetration and interference is of critical importance for a number of reasons. A design engineer must determine if an existing outdoor large scale wireless system, or macrocell, will provide sufficient coverage throughout a building, or group of buildings (i.e., a campus). Alternatively, wireless engineers must determine whether local area coverage will be adequately supplemented by other existing macrocells, or whether indoor wireless transceivers, or picocells, must be added. The placement of these cells is critical from both a cost and performance standpoint. If an indoor wireless system is being planned that interferes with signals from an outdoor macrocell, the design engineer must predict how much interference can be expected and where it will manifest itself within the building, or group of buildings. Also, providing a wireless system that minimizes equipment infrastructure cost as well as installation cost is of significant economic importance. As in-building and microcell wireless systems proliferate, these issues must be resolved quickly, easily, and inexpensively, in a systematic and repeatable manner.
There are many computer aided design (CAD) products on the market that can be used to design the environment used in one's place of business or campus. WiSE from Lucent Technology, Inc., SignalPro from EDX, PLAnet by Mobile Systems International, Inc., and TEMS and TEMS Light from Ericsson are examples of wireless CAD products. In practice, however, a pre-existing building or campus is designed only on paper and a database of parameters defining the environment does not readily exist. It has been difficult, if not generally impossible, to gather this disparate information and manipulate the data for the purposes of planning and implementation of indoor and outdoor RF wireless communication systems, and each new environment requires tedious manual data formatting in order to run with computer generated wireless prediction models. Recent research efforts by AT&T Laboratories, Brooklyn Polytechnic, and Virginia Tech, are described in papers and technical reports entitled “Radio Propagation Measurements and Prediction Using Three-dimensional Ray Tracing in Urban Environments at 908 MHZ and 1.9 GHz,” (IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, VOL. 48, No. 3, May 1999), by S. Kim, B. J. Guarino, Jr., T. M. Willis III, V. Erceg, S. J. Fortune, R. A. Valenzuela, L. W. Thomas, J. Ling, and J. D. Moore, (hereinafter “Radio Propagation”); “Achievable Accuracy of Site-Specific Path-Loss Predictions in Residential Environments,” (IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, VOL. 48, No. 3, May 1999), by L. Piazzi and H. L. Bertoni; “Measurements and Models for Radio Path Loss and Penetration Loss In and Around Homes and Trees at 5.85 Ghz,” (IEEE Transactions on Communications, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1998), by G. Durgin, T. S. Rappaport, and H. Xu; “Radio Propagation Prediction Techniques and Computer-Aided Channel Modeling for Embedded Wireless Microsystems,” ARPA Annual Report, MPRG Technical Report MPRG-TR-94-12, July 1994, 14 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by T. S. Rappaport, M. P. Koushik, J. C. Liberti, C. Pendyala, and T. P. Subramanian; “Radio Propagation Prediction Techniques and Computer-Aided Channel Modeling for Embedded Wireless Microsystems,” MPRG Technical Report MPRG-TR-95-08, July 1995, 13 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by T. S. Rappaport, M. P. Koushik, C. Carter, and M. Ahmed; “Use of Topographic Maps with Building Information to Determine Antenna Placements and GPS Satellite Coverage for Radio Detection & Tracking in Urban Environments,” MPRG Technical Report MPRG-TR-95-14, Sep. 15, 1995, 27 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by T. S. Rappaport, M. P. Koushik, M. Ahmed, C. Carter, B. Newhall, and N. Zhang; “Use of Topographic Maps with Building Information to Determine Antenna Placement for Radio Detection and Tracking in Urban Environments,” MPRG Technical Report MPRG-TR-95-19, November 1995, 184 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by M. Ahmed, K. Blankenship, C. Carter, P. Koushik, W. Newhall, R. Skidmore, N. Zhang and T. S. Rappaport; “A Comprehensive In-Building and Microcellular Wireless Communications System Design Tool,” MPRG-TR-97-13, June 1997, 122 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by R. R. Skidmore and T. S. Rappaport; “Predicted Path Loss for Rosslyn, Va.,” MPRG-TR-94-20, Dec. 9, 1994, 19 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by S. Sandhu, P. Koushik, and T. S. Rappaport; “Predicted Path Loss for Rosslyn, Va., Second set of predictions for ORD Project on Site Specific Propagation Prediction” MPRG-TR-95-03, Mar. 5, 1995, 51 pp., Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, by S. Sandhu, P. Koushik, and T. S. Rappaport. These papers and technical reports are illustrative of the state of the art in site-specific propagation modeling and show the difficulty in obtaining databases for city environments, such as Rosslyn, Va. While the above papers describe a research comparison of measured vs. predicted signal coverage, the works do not demonstrate a systematic, repeatable and fast methodology for creating an environmental database, nor do they report a method for analyzing system performance or visualizing and placing various wireless equipment components that are required to provide signals in the deployment of a wireless system in that environment.
While there are many methods available for designing wireless networks that provide adequate coverage, there is no easy method to ensure that the system will be cost effective. For instance, even though the coverage may be more than adequate, given the chosen wireless infrastructure components, the total cost of the system could be prohibitive.